MFT Treatment Planning 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A couple presents with frequent conflict and poor communication. Before developing a treatment plan, the MFT should first prioritize:
- Assigning communication homework exercises
- Completing a thorough biopsychosocial assessment (Correct answer)
- Referring the couple to separate individual therapy
- Teaching active listening skills in session one
Correct answer: Completing a thorough biopsychosocial assessment
A biopsychosocial assessment provides the foundation for an accurate case conceptualization and individualized treatment plan.
Question 2: When using a Structural Family Therapy lens to guide treatment planning, the therapist focuses primarily on:
- Exploring each member's childhood attachment experiences
- Identifying and restructuring dysfunctional family hierarchies and boundaries (Correct answer)
- Tracking circular patterns of communication over time
- Analyzing unconscious projections between family members
Correct answer: Identifying and restructuring dysfunctional family hierarchies and boundaries
Structural Family Therapy centers on reorganizing family structure, subsystems, and boundaries to relieve symptoms.
Question 3: A client's treatment plan goal states: 'Client will feel better about relationships.' This goal is problematic because it:
- Is too focused on interpersonal rather than intrapersonal issues
- Lacks specificity, measurability, and a clear timeframe (Correct answer)
- Contradicts evidence-based practice guidelines
- Addresses symptoms rather than underlying diagnosis
Correct answer: Lacks specificity, measurability, and a clear timeframe
Effective treatment goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) to guide and evaluate therapy.
Question 4: A therapist is treating a family where the identified patient is an adolescent with depression. The treatment plan should:
- Focus exclusively on the adolescent's individual symptom reduction
- Address only parenting behaviors that reinforce the depression
- Include systemic goals that involve the entire family unit (Correct answer)
- Defer family interventions until individual therapy concludes
Correct answer: Include systemic goals that involve the entire family unit
MFT treatment planning takes a systemic view, addressing relational and family dynamics alongside individual symptoms.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes a contraindication for couples therapy?
- One partner is ambivalent about the relationship
- There is an active pattern of domestic violence and coercive control (Correct answer)
- The couple disagrees about parenting strategies
- One partner has an individual mental health diagnosis
Correct answer: There is an active pattern of domestic violence and coercive control
Active domestic violence and coercive control create safety risks that make conjoint couples therapy contraindicated until safety is established.
Question 6: A client-centered treatment plan differs from a clinician-driven plan most significantly in that it:
- Uses exclusively evidence-based interventions only
- Incorporates the client's own goals, values, and preferences as central (Correct answer)
- Relies on standardized symptom checklists to set priorities
- Excludes the family from the goal-setting process
Correct answer: Incorporates the client's own goals, values, and preferences as central
Client-centered planning places the client's self-identified goals and values at the core of the treatment direction.
Question 7: In Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), treatment planning is organized around which primary aim?
- Challenging distorted cognitions that maintain relationship conflict
- Restructuring negative interaction cycles and fostering secure attachment bonds (Correct answer)
- Teaching communication skills through psychoeducation modules
- Exploring differentiation-of-self barriers rooted in family of origin
Correct answer: Restructuring negative interaction cycles and fostering secure attachment bonds
EFT treatment planning targets de-escalation of negative cycles, accessing underlying emotions, and creating new bonding interactions.
MFT Treatment Planning 2
A couple presents with frequent conflict and poor communication.
Before developing a treatment plan, the MFT should first prioritize: